Javascript is currently not enabled on this browser.Please enable Javascript for proper viewing of The Kathmandu Post website. Don't know how to enable javascript? Click here to see suggestions from google

Newly appointed Minister for Labour and Employment Gokarna Bista has vowed to give highest priority to address the grievances of migrant workers being cheated while pursuing employment opportunities in foreign lands. full story »

After a major Cabinet expansion on Friday, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on Sunday instructed ministers, state ministers, his advisors and top government officials including security chiefs to work effectively. full story »

Political issues, which have held South Asia’s development agendas as hostage, will prevent the region from achieving its growth potential in the coming days, unless the private sector intervenes and promotes trade and investment to spur economic growth. full story »

Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index plunged 26.77 points to close at 1,288.36 points, as investors took a wait and watch stance triggered by uncertainty of the new government’s policy, tussles between the Nepal Bankers’ Association and NIC Asia Bank coupled with a shortage of loanable funds with the banks. full story »

China on Wednesday elected Wang Yang as the chairman of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the top political advisory body. The voting took place at the fourth plenary meeting of the first session of the 13th CPPCC National Committee at The Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

CPPCC is the Chinese state organ that is regarded as an important institution for multiparty cooperation and political consultations under the leadership of Communist Party of China (CPC). It promotes socialist democracy in China politics.

Born in 1955, the 63-year-old had joined the CPC at the age of 20.

He was elected as a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in October last year.

CPPCC does not exert political influence but imposes constraints on political power. It suggests and put forth proposals for reforms, advances law-based governance, enhances people-centred approach to development, develop consultative democracy within CPPCC and strengthen democratic oversight in governance.

A Russian military transport plane crashed in Syria on Tuesday, killing all 32 people on board, Russian news agencies quoted the Defence Ministry as saying, an incident that sharply raises the death toll from the Kremlin’s Syria operation.

President Vladimir Putin, who is running for re-election later this month, in December ordered “a significant part” of Moscow’s military contingent in Syria to start withdrawing, declaring their work largely done.

But casualties continue to mount.

The defense ministry was cited as saying that the plane, a Soviet-designed An-26, crashed at Russia’s Hmeymim air base in Latakia Province and that initial information suggested the crash may have been caused by a technical fault.

Twenty-six passengers and six crew members were on board, and all were killed in the crash, the news agencies quoted the ministry as saying.

Russian state TV cited military officials as saying the aircraft had not been brought down by enemy fire. It said the crash happened as the plane came into land at Hmeymim, and that it came down around 500 meters (550 yards) short of the runway.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had expressed his condolences to relatives of those killed, and to all Russian service personnel, the RIA news agency reported.

Jiundo Akash, a Nepali play that depicts the woes of a transgender woman, has been staged at the ongoing eighth International Olympic Drama Festival. The play was staged in Guwahati and then at the premises of National School of Drama, New Delhi, last week. full story »

Sacred Love: Erotic art in the temples of Nepal—an anthology of photographs of, and research into, the erotic carvings found in the Hindu temples across Nepal—was launched amid a function in Kathmandu on Saturday. full story »

Seven years ago, Shivam Adhikari read a news report of a woman in the far-west who was raped when she was banished from her home during her menstruation. That news sparked the inspiration in Adhikari to write and direct Panchayat, a film that hits the screens today. full story »

The Resonance edition of the biennial music fest Echoes in the Valley (EITV) is taking place in Banepa on Saturday. Resonance 2018 is a one-day satellite musical event being organised in five different locations across Banepa. full story »

Delayed reporting by patients and lack of adequate diagnostic tools still remain a major challenge for efficient functioning of Rapid Response Teams (RRT) who work as primary responder during any epidemics or disasters. full story »

Having older brothers and sisters puts infants at higher risk for being hospitalised with the flu. Researchers studied 1,115 hospital admissions of children under two born in Scotland from 2007 to 2015. full story »

A common antibiotic called doxycycline can disrupt the formation of negative thoughts and fears in the brain and may prove useful in treating or preventing post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to research by British and Swiss scientists. full story »

Workers exposed to chemicals like deodorizers, sanitizers, disinfectants and sterilizers on the job may be more likely than other people to develop thyroid cancer, a recent study suggests. full story »

On Saturdays, the otherwise quiet Harion bazaar springs into action. Packed into heavy trucks and congested buses, so many people from villages far and wide swarm in from all directions, typically in a frantic search for the right quality of ration for their families. full story »

Born and raised in western Chitwan, Amar Neupane is a celebrated novelist and writer in Nepali literature. His debut work Pani ko Gham bagged the 2010 Padmashree Prize, while Seto Dharti bagged the 2012 Madan Puraskar.

When the winter morning first opens its laden eyes, when the first light of day appears at the horizon, most of us are at the peak of our dreams, or sleepily turning off our alarm clocks. But a small segment of the city is already awake, preparing for the onslaught of the day. At 5 am, there is a chance to experience the in-between world. It is neither day nor night. The city is moving, but not bustling with life. Nor is it quiet like in the dead of night.

The ongoing staging of Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters (directed by Rose Schwietz at Kunja Theatre) provides an opportunity to explore the relevance of 19th century Russian literature in present day Nepal.

At the turn of the fifth century, travelling through South Asia, Chinese monk Faxian had described a flourishing city along what is today the Nepal-India border. Almost two hundred years later, Xuanzang, another Chinese monk and scholar, described seeing a similar flourishing kingdom. Now, an archaeological survey that has been ongoing since 2013 has unearthed evidence suggesting that the sites described by the two ancient travellers match with what has for centuries remained buried underground.

Madame Bidhya Devi Bhandari will once again become our President. Yes, our comrades have decided to stick with Bhandari and Pun as candidates for our President and Vice President, and they are more than likely to win the election for their respective offices.

The party of BP Koirala, the Nepali Congress, urgently needs to reimagine and reinvent itself

Three months have passed since the provincial and federal elections, and the Nepali Congress (NC) is yet to seriously take stock of its massive electoral defeat. There have been a number of calls for reform from younger members of the party, but these have so far gone unheeded.

Many blamed party President Sher Bahadur Deuba for the NC’s electoral drubbing. And yet, he continues as the top leader of the party. Having been elected Parliamentary Party leader, the NC chose him as the person to guide the party’s direction for many years to come.

On the surface, this is a somewhat puzzling development. How could a party as well established as the NC choose the same person again and again, even when it is evident that his leadership has failed in the past?

There is no simple answer to this question. But there are some tendencies that can be identified. First, the NC has always demonstrated a psychological dependence on a single leader. First there was BP Koirala and then his brother Girija Prasad.

These leaders continued in their positions until their deaths. And so strongly was it felt that only the Koiralas could lead the party that Sushil Koirala became party president after GP’s death, even though he didn’t possess many leadership skills. Now that Deuba is party president, it seems that many NC leaders cannot even imagine anybody replacing him.

Second, this psychological condition is buttressed by an elaborate patronage structure. Deuba has been in power for many years and during this time he has extended personal patronage to thousands of people across the country at all levels of the party.

So there are a very large number of people in the party who feel personally loyal to Deuba and will support him, even though they know that he is unlikely to lead the rejuvenation of the party.

Third, there is a high degree of complacency within the Nepali Congress. Its leaders believe that since they are such an old and established party, one that led so many democratic movements in the country so as to be virtually synonymous with the system of democracy itself, they will always have supporters regardless of how they perform.

There is a grain of truth in this belief. After all, despite its electoral defeat, the NC did win around a third of Proportional Representation (PR) seats. And in fact, the party would have done very well if the CPN-UML had not formed an electoral alliance with the CPN-Maoist Centre.

And yet, NC leaders would do well to recognise that the current situation is very different from ones in the past. This is the first time that they have been in the opposition against a government that has the support of over two-thirds of parliament members.

The energy and sense of purpose of the ruling parties are far greater than the NC’s. If the NC continues in its old complacent ways and fails to craft a new political vision and appoint younger members to senior positions, its decline in Nepali politics will continue.

The recently released mid-term reviews of the fiscal year (FY) 2017/18 by the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) and the Ministry of Finance (MoF) point to challenging macroeconomic times ahead. Briefly, full story »

About Us

Established in February 1993, the Kathmandu Post, Nepal’s first privately owned English broadsheet daily, is today Nepal’s leading English language newspaper, with a daily circulation of 82,000 copies. This makes the Post Nepal’s second-most widely circulated newspaper—after Kantipur daily. The Kathmandu Post is also a member of Asia News Network that has over 15 members and is known for its insightful, unbiased journalistic work of the highest calibre. Read more»